


snowfall kind of love

by selflessbellamy



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:54:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21921739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selflessbellamy/pseuds/selflessbellamy
Summary: Just last week, Raven decided to give her a “wake-up call” over cups of Monty’s spiked eggnog:“Griffin, please. No one fucks the same guy for three years and still calls it ‘casual.’It’s time to face reality: You and Bellamy have something special.”***(or: 2019 December fic)
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Comments: 18
Kudos: 382





	snowfall kind of love

_ Last Christmas,  _ which has got to be the least sexy song is existence, is blasting through the loudspeakers, making the walls quake — and the pop hit is made worse by Jasper’s tone-deaf effort to sing along. 

Bellamy groans in frustration, fucking into her harder. “Why did we agree to come here again?”

Rolling her eyes, Clarke presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

Truth be told, the reason why they accepted Luna’s invitation is that their friends have lovingly called them ‘the hermits’ for the last three years, accusing them of spending all of their time at home, fucking in the most introverted way imaginable. Maybe they’re not wrong, but Clarke still wanted to prove that she and Bellamy are capable of being social. 

… And look at how well that went. 

It’s not her fault, though. This Christmas party couldn’t have been timed more horribly, as Bellamy has been working as an intern at the Smithsonian. Because of this, they’ve only had sex once in the past month, over the phone, which isn’t comparable to the  _ real thing. _

Being alone at the apartment for the majority of December has been difficult; like most roommates, they have their share of Holiday traditions: Every year, they bake gingerbread cookies, watch the original  _ Miracle on 34th Street  _ and do their Christmas shopping together. This year, she’s had to it all by herself. 

Of course, their friends have never understood any of it: The traditions, their living arrangement; none if it makes sense to them. 

Just last week, Raven decided to give her a “wake-up call” over cups of Monty’s spiked eggnog:

_ “Griffin, please. No one fucks the same guy for three years and still calls it ‘casual.’  _

_ It’s time to face reality: You and Bellamy have something special.” _

One thing is certain: They never planned it to turn out like this, for it to be  _ special. _

The first time it happened, having sex with Bellamy was a means to an end. She needed to find some blunt way to tell a cheater to ‘fuck right off’, so she went to — or rather,  _ down on  _ — the one guy that her ex-boyfriend openly despised. When Clarke met Finn as a junior in high school, she thought that he was charming, and because  _ he  _ thought that Bellamy was an arrogant prick, she believed it, too. 

That was until a year later when she caught Finn making out with Roma Bragg under the bleachers. Finally, Clarke realized that he was a walking cliché who only had his hair going for him. There was just one problem: He didn’t understand how to walk away from a fight with his pride intact, so he followed her to NYU, and she decided that fucked-up situations called for fucked-up solutions... 

… Her fucked-up solution of choice was to seduce Bellamy at Finn’s fraternity house party, then suck him off in the bathroom. 

(Maybe the last part wasn’t necessary, but she figured that she might as well have some fun while she was at it.)

The rest is history. 

Now, they’ve been doing this —  _ each other  _ — for three years. According to Murphy, they’re abusing the ‘friends with benefits’ label by being exclusive, but Bellamy knows how to shut him up quickly. 

_ “You’ve never had a relationship like ours.” _

_ “Yes, I have!” _

_ “Fucking your ex every time you’re wasted is not comparable to what Clarke and I have.” _

At the end of the day, their friends’ opinions don’t matter much. They don’t have to understand their relationship because they’re not a part of it. Sure, three years might seem like a long time to spend with someone who isn’t your significant other, but time has flown by with him. It seems as if it were yesterday that Bellamy moved into her off-campus apartment. In reality, that happened over two years ago. 

“Hello, Earth to the princess,” Bellamy says softly before kissing a tender spot beneath her jaw. “I’m literally inside you.” 

Clarke giggles, but the light sound is cut-off by a moan when he thrusts again, hiking her leg up higher on his back. In the last three years, he has carefully mapped every corner of her body; he knows exactly what to do to make her cry out from pleasure. 

_ Why the hell would she willingly let go of that? _

Then, of course, there’s the way that he smiles at her. Somehow, it’s always contagious, even when she’s worn to the bone or an inch away from crying a flood. After a long day, she knows that she can rest her head in his lap or tuck herself into the safe place under his arm. He’s just  _ there  _ — he has been for years. 

“You don’t make this easy for me, huh?” he says, reaching between their bodies mid-thrust to rub at her clit. Clarke whimpers in response, causing him to crack a grin. 

“Well, I don’t want you to become bored with me.”

At that reply, Bellamy raises his eyebrows and brings her to the edge in the matter of a moment, as if to prove a point. Then he kisses her throat through the aftershocks until her breathing evens out, paints a gentle smile on her face when he nuzzles her cheek. 

“Bored, with you? You’re the least boring person I know,” he assures her while fishing for her bra next to the bed. “We better go back to the others before they ban us from all group activities.” 

* * *

Unbeknownst to them, a mistletoe has been hung above the doorway to the living room. Clarke notices it first, bringing herself to a brought halt at the sight of the green-leaf branch above her head. After staring at it for a couple of seconds, she turns her attention straight ahead, to their grinning friends: Monty and Jasper are giving each other a low-five; Harper’s beaming at them, Raven elbows Miller, which nearly makes him choke on his sip of spiked eggnog. 

Beside her, Bellamy rolls his eyes hard enough to make the world tilt. “Very mature, Guys… Well, jokes on you ‘cause—”

Without warning, he wraps an arm around her waist and captures her lips in a searing kiss; it makes her breath hitch, and her heart leaps in her chest as her hands fly to his broad shoulders. Given that it’s a kiss, which only seeks to baffle their friends, the passion of it is a bit stunning. As Bellamy finally draws back, he completes the statement, “—We kiss all the time.”

“Even when you’re not fucking?” Murphy asks crudely. Unlike the others, he’s sitting on the couch and someone — Clarke suspects Raven — has made him wear a pair of reindeer antlers. Judging by his scowl, he isn’t too happy about it. 

Smirking at the sight, Bellamy replies, “None of your business, Rudolph.” 

When Clarke laughs, Murphy tosses a throw pillow in their direction, but his aim isn’t good enough.

This is the first time that they’ve had the chance to have their Christmas party somewhere that isn’t one of their apartments. Since March, Raven has been dating a marine biologist, Luna, who has a beach house. For the occasion, they’ve decked it with festive decorations: Multi-colored lights and cheap ornaments have been hung everywhere, and red, sparkly confetti is covering every surface. But the thing that brings out the atmosphere for Clarke is the lit fireplace.

She and Bellamy decide to sit down in front of it, with each their marshmallow to roast. 

“Dark or milk chocolate?” Harper asks, placing the box of Graham crackers on the floor for them. 

Before Clarke can state her preference, Bellamy says, “Dark. For both of us.” When he looks at her, he looks apologetic, as though he regrets speaking for her, but she just smiles at him to wordlessly let him know that she doesn’t mind. 

Harper smiles, too. “Oh, you really do know her, huh?”

“Of course I do. She’s my best friend.” 

Behind them, Miller exclaims, “What am I? Chopped liver?” in joking protest, which has Bellamy grinning at him. 

Without question, the two guys have been friends for much longer — since Elementary school, to be exact, and she didn’t start opening her eyes to a real friendship with him until their senior year of high school after Finn cheated on her. Once that rumor had circled around the entire school, Bellamy invited her to eat with him and his friends just to make sure that she didn’t feel so alone. 

She’ll always remember that. 

“Okay, my best  _ girl  _ friend then.”

When Bellamy says this, Jasper starts slapping Monty repeatedly on the forearm; her heart skips a beat, too, but she chooses to ignore that as well as she can. Though she senses him looking at her, she pretends not to notice. Instead, she worries her lower lip and finishes making her S’More. 

“Careful, Princess,” he says as she moves to take the first bite. “It’s  _ hot. _ ”

At his warning, Clarke lets out a short laugh. “Bellamy, you’re a big baby sometimes.”

To tease him, she digs her teeth into the corner of the gooey marshmallow, watching as his eyes widen just a bit. Despite his belief, she doesn’t burn herself and grins at him, bumping his shoulder. 

While everyone is stuffing themselves with S’mores and chocolate-covered pretzels, the conversation drifts to internships: Monty and Jasper landed theirs at the same pharmaceutical lab; Miller was at the local police department, doing archive and filing work, to his annoyance; Murphy shadowed different salespeople at  _ Emerson & Singh,  _ but Raven was by far the luckiest out of the group. After a ton of work, she was granted an internship at NASA. The spinal-injury she sustained in a car accident ten years ago crushed her dream of becoming an astronaut, but now she wants to engineer the spacecrafts. 

Monty is the first person to pose a question to Bellamy, “How was the Smithsonian? You’ve talked about it  _ for years. _ ” 

Immediately, Bellamy’s dark eyes light up. “It lived up to every expectation; it’s  _ unbelievable _ … But what’s even more unbelievable is how much they liked me there. Um, yeah, they offered me a permanent position as a grad student.”

When he leans closer to her, Clarke can feel the rush of pure excitement that courses through his body as though it were her own. Of course, she  _ should  _ be as excited as he is, because this is a huge, hard-earned opportunity for him. 

Still, all that she can think is:  _ The Smithsonian is in Washington D.C. _

_ He’ll have to move away.  _

At the thought, a cruel lump tightens her throat, binding it with tears. To overpower them, she takes a sudden swig of hot chocolate; the liquid burns as it goes down, and she doesn’t taste the sweetness. While Bellamy enthusiastically tells everyone about the ancient Rome exhibit, Clarke forces a smile. 

“I’ll have to start hunting for apartments right away. Hopefully I’ll have room for my books.”

“That’s what you’re worried about, Man? Your books? Whatever happened to a nice, flat-screen television?” Murphy asks, taking the last sip of his eggnog. 

Bellamy snorts. “Student loans happened.” 

At this moment, the world seems contorted to Clarke. Her friends, who have always had an opinion about her connection to Bellamy, are oblivious to the way that her heart is bursting; no one seems to notice how hard it is for her to breathe. It feels as though she’s fumbling her way through a haze of smoke all on her own, and the only thing that she can hold onto is Bellamy’s hand.

Worrying her lower lip, she interlaces their fingers. His gaze lands on her, and she tries not to meet it, but in the end, she can’t resist the strong pull. 

They don’t need to say anything; they never needed words. Somehow, their communication has always run deeper than that — as when he didn’t have to talk to her to understand that she needed someone to sit with in high school. It’s inexplicable, but she knows that it’s real because he starts rubbing the top of her hand with his thumb… 

… And his eyes are screaming ‘ _ Let’s go.’ _

Ignoring the many curious eyes that have fallen on them, they step out of the living room and into the empty hallway. Bellamy stops but doesn’t pull his hand from hers; it makes her heart flip. As he turns around to face her, he stares at her for a minute, and she recognizes the emotion that fills his earthy eyes; it’s the same kind of determination that shines through him whenever he’s put his mind to something. 

She can picture the blow of him saying,  _ ‘I’m doing this. It’s my dream. I’m sorry, Clarke.’ _

And who would she be to blame him for that? Attachment and feelings were never a part of the  _ deal,  _ at least not intentionally. But then they decided to only fuck each other; then he brought his toothbrush and clothes to her place, and their lives slowly melted into one another. Somewhere along the way, she supposes, it became almost impossible to see the end of this. 

Now, it’s staring her in the face. 

As her hands tremble along her sides, Clarke clenches them into fists. “Say something.” 

Bellamy lowers his gaze to the floor, and she notices his Adam’s apple bobbing. Then his lips part to form words, and her eyes snap shut of their own accord, awaiting the stab to her heart. “Clarke—If I asked you to move to D.C. with me, would you say ‘yes’?” 

Her mind goes blank; every coherent thought is stripped from it until there is nothing left except white noise.

“Oh… okay,” is what he stammers, his voice small as he shifts on his feet. “Now it’s your turn to say something, Princess.”

“I thought you wanted to move there on your own, I mean that’s what it sounded like—”

At that, Bellamy pinches the skin between his eyebrows. “Because I don’t want our friends offering their opinions on this. Our relationship, it’s supposed to be  _ ours.  _ But as it is right now, I can’t just come out and say what I want or how I feel, because I can’t stand the judgment.”

For the better part of two years, their relationship has been under scrutiny from their friends and family because everyone seems to have  _ something  _ to say how ‘unusual’ their living arrangement is. Her mom has been vocal about wanting her be in a “serious” relationship, and she’s been trying her hardest to act as though that doesn’t bother her. If Bellamy wasn’t serious about her, he would’ve never moved in with her or traveled 300 miles in a car to see her when she was out of town on her birthday. 

The only thing she has ever doubted was how serious he was about  _ wanting  _ her. 

“If you can’t stand the judgment, why are you asking me to move to D.C. with you?” If they move out of state together, they’ll won’t ever see the end of the judgment; it will hit them from every possible angle, and maybe that will be the final straw for him, a reason to put an end to it. 

“Because I’m in love with you!” 

His declaration rattles the Earth, shakes her to the core; it’s loud enough to quiet the rest of the world, as the background noise of chatter from the living room dies out and Mariah Carey is cut off mid-’All I want For Christmas is You’. For a long, tense moment, you could hear a pin drop in the hallway, but then Bellamy lets out a heavy breath that makes it seem like he’s kept these words trapped in his throat for too long. 

“I’m in love with you,” he repeats, his voice lower this time. “I have been for a long time now, but I’ve been too damn stubborn to do anything about it. Maybe I’ve been scared as well ‘cause this was never supposed to happen. None of this was. But I liked you enough to move in with you, and apparently I liked you enough to fall for you.”

When he cracks a boyish grin, she reaches for his hand. Though she’s been rendered speechless, she wants him to know that he’s not alone in this. Not at all. 

“I didn’t want  _ them  _ to be right. I just wanted them to mind their own business for once. Well, that doesn’t matter now. But if you don’t feel the same way—”

“I do,” she blurts, feeling heat rise to her cheeks. Lowering her gaze, she looks at the reindeer pattern on his knitted Christmas sweater, but he lifts her chin to make her focus on him. “I’ve been in denial.”

_ For years. It has to end now.  _

So she kisses him. Of course, she must’ve kissed him a thousand times before in the last three years, but this is still different somehow. As her lips capture his, she hears him breathe in, clearly from pure relief. Then his strong arm comes around her waist, holds her close. Although Bellamy responds to her passion, he doesn’t rush to deepen the kiss. Instead, he keeps it as sweet as possible. 

He smiles against her mouth, and she feels her heart spark in her chest; bliss flows through her veins. 

When the kiss is broken, she leans her forehead against his. “Yes, Bellamy. I’ll move to D.C. with you.” 

To the tune of their friends’ loud cheers, Clarke leaps into his arms, and he lifts her off the ground. As a freshman in college three years ago, she would’ve never seen this coming, but maybe she should have: she picked him from the bunch of attractive people for a reason.

She doesn’t remember exactly why she did. But she picked him.

And now they’ve picked each other. 


End file.
